American Life in Poetry

Sun., Oct. 12, 2014

Ted Kooser U.S. Poet Laureate

Here’s a lovely poem for this lovely month, by Robert Haight, who lives in Michigan.

Early October Snow

It will not stay.

But this morning we wake to pale muslin

stretched across the grass.

The pumpkins, still in the fields, are planets

shrouded by clouds.

The Weber wears a dunce cap

and sits in the corner by the garage

where asters wrap scarves

around their necks to warm their blooms.

The leaves, still soldered to their branches

by a frozen drop of dew, splash

apple and pear paint along the roadsides.

It seems we have glanced out a window

into the near future, mid-December, say,

the black and white photo of winter

carefully laid over the present autumn,

like a morning we pause at the mirror

inspecting the single strand of hair

that overnight has turned to snow.

Poem copyright 2013 by Robert Haight from “Feeding Wild Birds” (Mayapple Press, 2013). (Lines two and six are variations of lines by Herb Scott and John Woods.) Poem reprinted by permission of the author and publisher. American Life in Poetry is supported by The Poetry Foundation and the English department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.